Instead, because of their similar chemical composition (15 of the 17 rare earth elements occupy consecutive places on the periodic table), they bond freely with one another in minerals and clays.Īs the academic David S. But unlike copper and similarly well-known elements, such as gold and silver, rare earths don’t clump together in single-element lumps. The rare earth element cerium, for example, is the 25th most abundant on Earth, making it about as common as copper. The USGS (United States Geological Survey) describes rare earth elements as “moderately abundant,” meaning that they’re not as common as elements like oxygen, silicon, aluminum, and iron (which together make up 90 percent of the Earth’s crust), but still well dispersed around the planet. The name “rare earth” is a historical misnomer, stemming from the fact that when they first discovered they were difficult to extract from surrounding matter. The rare earth ores were discovered in the seabed near the island. An aerial view of Minamitori Island taken in 1987. In both cases, the overlooked factor is just how difficult it is to produce rare earth elements, compared to how easy it is to find them. We know this pretty conclusively because it tried this in 2010, and it didn’t work out. And although China seems to wield great power over this critical global supply chain, the truth is that the country can’t just bring the West to its knees by limiting exports of rare earth elements. Despite appearances, the Minamitori find is not as significant as headlines have implied. “It is important to secure our own source of resources, given how China controls the prices,” Professor Yutaro Takaya Waseda, who led the Japanese research team, told The Wall Street Journal.īut experts say this narrative is wrong. In this eventuality, the Minamitori hoard would be a lifeline. China currently produces more than 90 percent of the world’s supply of rare earth materials (the exact figure tends to fluctuate year-by-year), and in the event of a conflict, said reports, it could jack up prices for the West and its allies, or even shut them out altogether.

This news was presented as having great geopolitical significance. Some 16 million tons were estimated to be lurking in the deep-sea mud, enough to meet global demand on a “semi-infinite basis,” said the researchers. Last week, many publications covered the news that a Japanese team of scientists had found a huge trove of rare earth elements off the coast of the country’s Minamitori Island. This second fact is important when putting recent headlines about these 17 oddly named elements in proper context.

If you need to know two things, it’s that despite their name, they’re not at all rare. If you need to know one thing about rare earth metals, it’s that they’re crucial to modern technology, helping power everything from MRI machines and satellites to headphones and nuclear reactors.

Rare earth minerals list